Wireless networks typically include signal transmitting antennae geographically positioned in a manner designed to provide contiguous signal coverage over a geographic service area. For example, cellular networks are generally organized into cells, with each cell having at least one antenna capable of transmitting radio frequency (“RF”) signals over a particular section of the service area. The cells of the network are positioned to provide cellular coverage over the geographic service area, such as the territory occupied by a city.
Each cell is assigned a particular range of radio frequencies within a predetermined cellular band. Because an antenna of a cellular network transmits at relatively low power, the radio frequencies transmitted by the antenna are for the most part restricted to its corresponding cell. This allows the limited number of frequencies within a cellular band to be reused by different cells within a cellular network. As a result, cellular networks are able to support large numbers of active cellular devices. Overlap between reused radio frequencies is avoided by ensuring that no two immediately adjacent cells are assigned common radio frequencies.
Because cellular signals of a cellular network are transmitted using RF signals, the extent of effective coverage provided by a cellular network can be affected by many different influences. For example, the effective range of RF signals may be undesirably compromised by geographic features such as mountains, canyons, buildings, and weather conditions. Consequently, cellular reception may be weak, or even nonexistent, at some locations (e.g., in a basement of a building) within a cellular network. Moreover, many other circumstances may undesirably attenuate or interfere with cellular RF signals. For example, other radio signals or radiation produced by other sources may interfere with cellular signals.
Because numerous possible static and dynamic factors may affect RF signals as they travel through a cellular network, it is extremely difficult for network designers to predict the strength of the RF signals at every location within the cellular network. As a result, cellular customers often experience “dead spots” within cellular networks. Dead spots refer to locations within a cellular network that do not receive an effective cellular signal. The cellular signal may be either weak or nonexistent at a dead spot in the cellular network. Dead spots may cause cellular callers to experience interrupted telephone connections, unclear or unintelligible telephone conversations, and failures to establish connections. These experiences may lead the carrier of a cellular network to lose both business and goodwill among customers.
When dead spots are identified, network operators are able to attempt to eliminate them by making adjustments to cellular antennae or transmitters. In the past, cellular network operators have employed several approaches for discovering dead spots in cellular networks. For example, one traditional approach is to rely upon cellular customers to report dead spots. This approach tends to be less than effective because customers may not travel to all locations within a network. Moreover, customers may be either unable to identify the precise location at which a dead spot was experienced or not motivated to go to the trouble of reporting the dead spot.
Other conventional approaches for locating dead spots are labor intensive, time consuming, and not always accurate. For example, many cellular network operators hire employees to travel throughout cellular networks with specialized equipment capable of measuring the availability and strength of cellular signals. Not only is the specialized equipment costly, manual sampling of signal strength requires vast amounts of manpower to cover a dynamically changing grid of cellular signals. Moreover, it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for employees to sample signal strength from every possible location within a cellular network.
Recently, there has been an increase in the number of wireless communications devices (e.g., cellular telephones) that are equipped with global positioning system (“GPS”) technologies. By using GPS technologies, a cellular telephone is able to determine its location according to GPS coordinates. Other approaches have also been introduced for identifying the current location of a cellular telephone within a cellular network. For example, principles of trilateration have been used to evaluate cellular signals originated from a cellular telephone in order to estimate its location. However, none of the existing approaches for locating cellular telephones within a cellular network has been used for tracking, analyzing, and managing signal strength within a cellular network (e.g., in locating and correcting dead spots). Rather, existing approaches have been designed primarily for use with emergency 911 telephone calls so that the location of a cellular telephone originating a 911 telephone call may be identified and potentially used in providing timely emergency aid.
In sum, existing approaches for tracking signal strength in wireless network are time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, and less than effective for precisely identifying all dead spots in wireless communication networks. Consequently, wireless carriers often experience frustration in trying to track and eliminate dead spots. Moreover, because existing approaches are less than effective, carriers often suffer losses of business and goodwill due to subscribers experiencing the inconvenience and frustration typically associated with the undesirable effects caused by dead spots in wireless networks.